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A TNS South Africa survey has revealed that a significant proportion of South Africans don’t have a clue what fracking is about.

While less than a quarter of urban South Africans are in favour of fracking in the Karoo and 30% against, a survey released on Wednesday shows that the other 46% appeared not to know what fracking was or did not have an opinion, as they gave a “don’t know” response.

So, either they have not heard about it, or they have and have not bothered to find out more.

This is pretty typical, though. South Africans are not passionate (enough) about the environment and in matters related to water, for example, hopelessly uninformed. The problem is exacerbated by abysmally-poor quality of reporting on environmental matters, apart from big-hype stuff like rhino poaching, and journalists simply do not take the time to do investigative research into issues such as water quality threats. Excessive and unbalanced reporting on single issues, such as Acid Mine Drainage (AMD), has not helped!